Typically I wouldn’t hesitate to label myself as an effective manager of time. I generally get up early and stay up late. I avoid watching too much television and my inherent personality characteristics dictate that I establish a plan for just about anything that I do.

Lately, I’m finding myself strapped time wise. This is the exact reason why I used to publish fresh content on this blog daily and today marks my first (marginally compelling) article in the last 11 days. Interestingly, I’ve found the time to start 6 different drafts on other various topics, but simply haven’t had the time to fully develop my thoughts (focus) and finish. Thankfully I haven’t run out of subject matter to discuss.

What is not strange about it is that I know where the time is going and much of it has to do with getting our new home settled and running errands associated with the move, such as trips to Home Depot, the recycling center (for all of those boxes) and the motor vehicle registration facility. I have also found, now that I’m working from home, that I am putting in more hours at my day job (my primary source of income and health insurance). My co-workers seem to think that my newfound motivation as a telecommuter comes from the fact that the time that I have when I’m not working is spent on things that I enjoy more now so than I did when we were in Wisconsin. Considering it was ~50 degrees F up there today and we had a low of 73 in Tampa…they may be onto something.

This brings me to another interesting observation. When we moved from a single family home (McMansion) on a 1+ acre lot to a townhouse style (zero lot line) condo in a clustered community near downtown, I thought our kids would suffer a bit from not having that big back yard to run around in. What I’ve found is that the kids don’t seem to miss it at all and the only family member adversely affected is our dog, who now has to be walked on a leash. Although, I think she rather enjoys the extra attention. The upside to which is that we are all now forced to get a little more exercise, through dog walking, than we used to and our youngest daughter gets a little extra one-on-one time from her parents when we walk her down to the community playground, which has a play set of swings and monkey bars that blows away what she had in WI.

What I had hoped for with not having to do yard work…ever again was that eventually I would find some extra time for exercising, being with my wife and kids and taking on a few side projects (such as this blog) that just might net me a few extra dollars each month. So far, that hasn’t really happened, but with any luck, today’s posting is a step in the right direction.

Thanks for sticking by me!